Paul E Nelson presenting at Cascadia Poetry Festival 8, photo by Leszek Chudzinski
“Paul formally received the Mahayana precepts of Zen Buddhism in 2023, becoming a lay practitioner within the tradition, but I believe he had long lived in accord with them. His poetry, in its sensitivity, its humility, and its deep listening, embodies practice-realization — the understanding that practice and awakening are not separate. His writing was his zazen. This collection, FLEXIBLE MIND, is more than a book. It is a continuation of that practice. A testament to a man who lives by attention, who bows to language but does not cling to it, who seeks what lays beyond words by walking straight into them.”– Kosho Itagaki, Soto Zen Priest
Are You Stockpiling Postcards?
The 10th August Poetry Postcard Fest begins on July 4. Registration begins that day here: Buy tickets for August POetry POstcard Fest And poems from this year's fest can be submitted for the 1st...
Billy Crystal Eulogy for Muhammad Ali
I think it was the second fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali where, at Dever School on the Northwest Side of Chicago, one of my black schoolmates, bussed in from a black neighborhood, asked...
6.9.16 – American Sentence (Chicory)
I remember a former neighbor, the son of Okies who grew up in rural California, when he saw my old Black Lab Kuma eating grass, he said: "We got a grazer!" Indeed, as am I. Whether it's hawthorne...
6.8.16 – American Sentences
Most recent American Sentence.
6.6.16 American Sentences
Yes, I am still writing daily American Sentences. (One a day since 1.1.01.) Jim O'Halloran and I had a gas Friday night (6.3.16) at Another Read Through in Portland on Mississippi and read June...
Elizabeth Woods Postcard Interview
Elizabeth Woods checks in from Down Under with a Postcard Fest interview. An excerpt: EW-The festival is now in its tenth year, what are some of the notable aspects a changes you have seen along the...
American Sentences in PDX
It will be my first reading in Portland in over ten years. Can't remember the exact time and place of the last reading and it happens Friday, June 3 @7pm at Another Read Through in Portland, Oregon....
2016 August Poetry Postcard Fest is Coming!
The call for the tenth year of the August Poetry Postcard Fest will be released on July 4, 2016, and tickets go on sale at that time. Like last year, as soon as 32 participating poets get signed up,...
ti-TCR 13: For Jamie Reid (1941-2015)
I am delighted to be represented in The Capilano Review's special web folio for Jamie Reid who died last year. Download here. Featuring Carol Reid, bill bissett, George Bowering, Eve Joseph, Daphne...
Throwback Thursday
Lost in the Woods edition: See the whole story here: https://paulenelson.com/about/lost-in-the-woods-sept-2000/five-who-survived-wilderness/
SICA-USA Poems for Peace
Andrew Hall and Adelia MacWilliam are two people helping me curate a series of online readings that were conceived of by SICA, the Subud International Cultural...
Galactic Travel in Rainier Beach
What a delight to see the careful unveiling of community in this neighborhood where Bhakti and I have lived for over 4 years. The neighborhood is Rainier Beach and we live across the street from a...
Haibun de la Serna World Tour
Now that Haibun de la Serna, my latest book of poems, is out, it is time to launch the HdlS WORLD TOUR to promote it. I am blessed to have a sympathetic publisher in Koon Woon of Goldfish Press and...
The interview I conducted with Sam O’Hana, a Ph.D. student at CUNY, is immensely critical and immensely validating for the work we do at the Cascadia Poetics Lab. At its core, the discussion is about whether writing is for people of means, or if it can be people who have skill and something to say. It means the literary gatekeepers have failed us and have a role in perpetuating neoliberalism in North America which has paved the way for authoritarianism. The interview is available as a podcast here and as a YouTube video here. Below, I have pasted in the transcript and here is my introduction to Sam O’Hana and his topic.